The Silkie's Call

by Laura Browning

  “All right.”

  Catriona placed her hands gently along Annabel’s ribs. “From this pain my son did make, take away the hurt and ache. No more bruising let us see, as I will so will it be.”

  Her eyes met Annabel’s in the mirror. Slowly, Annabel loosened the towel. The bruising was gone along with the hurt.

  “That is amazing.” Annabel breathed.

  Catriona laughed. “That’s only remnants of what I could do as a Faerie.”

  ****

  Cayden was talking with Taylor inside the ballroom on the Skerry when a tingle ran down his spine. He looked up just in time to see Catriona push Bell’s wheelchair into the ballroom. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. She was beautiful. His mother had dressed her in a deep blue gown, a traditional Silkie dress that brought out the sapphire of her eyes. As a concession to Bell’s modesty, he could see the material was draped more heavily than many of the other women whose bodies could be clearly seen through the translucent material. Her sun-streaked curls were gathered loosely at the crown of her head, but then cascaded down her back. It showed off the slender column of her throat and the fragile bones of her shoulders.

  “My God!” Taylor breathed. “Poppy?”

  Cayden brushed past him. He bowed before the two women. “Momma. Bell.”

  He lifted her hand and brought it to his lips, smiling slightly against her skin as she blushed. “You’re beautiful, Bell.”

  “Your mother’s handiwork.” She looked up over her shoulder and smiled at Catriona.

  Cayden came around to take the wheelchair from his mother. After kissing her on the cheek he bent near Bell’s ear. “God’s handiwork, my love. Come, let me introduce you.”

  He pushed her chair forward into the room. Annabel now felt as if every eye had turned to watch the two of them. Taylor stood next to Catriona and Carrick. She noted that the older man no longer had the leather anklet on. Instead a silky sealskin hung over one shoulder. Annabel looked around the room and saw ten other men similarly garbed in traditional dress with sealskins hanging from their shoulders. All of them wore circlets more ornate than the one Cayden had. Annabel swallowed as she realized that Cay was pushing her toward a man who stood straight and tall at the opposite end of the room. His iron gray hair waved to his shoulders and his eyes were black and piercing. Next to him was another man equally imposing, with black hair and when Annabel looked closely, she realized his eyes were a deep, mesmerizing blue.

  Her heart beat heavily as she felt their eyes on her. When they reached the other side of the room, Cayden stopped just a few feet away, and coming around to her side, he bowed to both men and then lifted Annabel’s hand.

  “Your graces, allow me to present Miss Annabel Barton.”

  She was unsure what to do. She couldn’t curtsy, couldn’t do anything.

  “Bell, may I present Riordan, King of the Silkie and Faeran, Duke of the Atlantic.”

  She knew her hand trembled, just as her smile did. When Riordan bowed over her hand, she cringed away in her chair, overwhelmed by his piercing black eyes.

  “Back off Rory,” the man next to him spoke, and Annabel’s eyes instantly swiveled to stare at him. It was the voice she’d heard earlier in the day in her mind. “You’re frightening her. She’s not used to us, especially not decked out in all this ceremonial garb.”

  When Riordan chuckled and stood up, Annabel exhaled in relief. The one called Faeran stepped forward. “Don’t let the titles scare you. We’re not like your human aristocracy. He’s Riordan or Rory and you may call me Faeran.” He looked at Cayden. “Be a good pup. Go away. I would like to speak with your Bell.”

  Cayden stiffened, his brows drawing together in a frown.

  “Don’t puff up at me, boy. I won’t hurt her. In ten minutes, you can bring her something to drink out on the bow deck.”

  Cayden saw the glint in Faeran’s eyes and bowed politely. “As you wish your Grace.”

  “Stuffy puppy,” Annabel thought she heard Faeran mumble as Cayden walked away, but she wasn’t sure because she was so petrified when the man took hold of the handles on her wheelchair and pushed her out the side doors before turning to guide her toward the bow.

  She chafed with frustration and fear. It was a situation she resented, her inability to walk away.

  “Ah but then you must listen to me while we discuss a little of your family history.”

  She clenched her hands in her lap. “It was you!” she accused. “Why were you in my head this afternoon, and what are you doing now? I—I want Cayden.”

  He stopped pushing her chair, set the brake and came around to stand several feet away, leaning against the rail of the Skerry. “Hmm. I thought you were a strong, brave woman. Instead you sound like a spoiled, frightened baby right now. Where is your backbone?”

  Pompous ass! Annabel glared at him. “My backbone is right in this fucking chair where it’s been for the past seven years.”

  “Am I supposed to pity you?”

  She reached for the brake. “I don’t care what you do. I don’t care who you are. You are nothing to me. I am not a Silkie. You have no say over me.”

  “Don’t I? Set that brake. I might not control you, but I have a big say in what happens tomorrow to both Ciaran and the request I know Cayden and Carrick will make to allow a marriage between you and your pup.”

  “Then if you’re smart, you and your other lords will tell him no and make me leave.”

  Is that what you really want?

  No! I want to be what he needs. I want to be whole. I want to be the mate he needs.

  “What about what he wants? Do you think he doesn’t know and you must be the one to decide? Would you be brave enough to be the mate he wants?”

  She stopped the chair even as she had begun to turn it away. With her hands still on the wheels, Annabel lowered her head. “I don’t know.”

  Faeran stepped forward and once more took hold of the handles on her chair. “You must give it some thought. If you love him as I think you do, then you must give it some thought Annabel Barton.”

  He pushed her chair forward slowly. “Tell me about your father. Tell me about Phillip Barton.”

  “How do you know his name?”

  Faeran laughed. “I know.”

  Annabel looked out over the bay. She could see the lights of the Yacht Club in the distance and the shimmer of reflected light from the boats anchored in the marina. Farther away, the subtler lighting of the big summer houses. Places like Barton’s Point.

  “It’s funny. We only ever spent summers here, but I always have the hardest time picturing Daddy anywhere other than here. I barely remember him in our apartment in the city. It was here that he always seemed to come alive, as if he only marked time until we got to the ocean. I think had it not been for my mother, he would have lived here year round.”

  “He could have after her death. Why didn’t he?”

  “He said he wanted me to grow up in the city where I would be exposed to people and culture.” She stopped, and her hands clenched in her lap. “But the truth is...I would have been happier here. I always looked at the house here as my home, my room. If it was the place where Daddy came alive, then to me it was the only place where I truly lived. The smell of the ocean, the sound of the waves and the feel of the salt spray, they are what made me feel at home.”

  “But yet you left for seven years. Why did you not let it heal you?”

  She looked over her shoulder at him in confusion. “There was nothing to heal. I am what I am.”

  He set the brake and came around to crouch next to her. “You have no idea what you really are, girl. No idea at all. And you denied yourself the one thing that would have made the difference.”

  Annabel drew back from the fierce light in his night dark eyes. Who are you?

  He stared at her and shook his head. Not tonight. The time is not yet right.

  “Bell?” Cayden scowled when he saw Faeran crouched next to her. “You said y
ou wouldn’t hurt her,” he growled.

  Faeran stood. “And I have not.”

  Cayden hovered next to her protectively.

  “Take her, pup. Make your introductions, but then let her rest. Tomorrow will be a long day for all of us.”

  Faeran walked away, his robes molding his broad chest and flowing about his strong thighs.

  “Are you all right, Bell?”

  “Yes.” She looked at him pleadingly. “Must I meet the rest of them?”

  Cayden knelt beside her and buried his face in the warm skin of her neck. “Yes, love, but none are as bad as what you’ve already been through. The rest of the Atlantic lords are not nearly as fierce, and the Pacific lords take a very different approach to things, not nearly as tense.”

  Chapter 19

  The next hour passed in a blur of names and faces that Annabel was positive she would never remember. For her there were only three who stood out from the rest: Carrick, Riordan and Faeran. She felt his eyes on her as Cayden escorted her around to meet them all. She glimpsed Taylor in conversation with him and wondered if he would grill her brother as he had her. When the hour ended, Annabel reached up to put her hand over Cayden’s.

  “Please, Cay. Take me out of here.”

  When they reached her cabin, he shut the door behind them. The only light was from the moonlight that came through the windows next to the bed. Annabel sagged with relief.

  “You look done in, love. Do you want me to get Momma or a maid to help you?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I need you, Cayden. Can you stay with me?”

  In answer, he picked her up from her chair, carried her to the bed and sat down. His elegant, sensitive hands cradled her, stroked her, and cherished her. His touch comforted her, relaxed her and then aroused her. Fingers brushed along her arms, down her throat and across the diaphanous material of her gown to the aroused points of her nipples. She whimpered.

  “That’s it, love.” His voice was a low purr in her ear.

  She twisted in his arms, wrapping hers around his neck and pressing her swollen, aching breasts against his broad chest. He felt her softness and his hands bracketed her waist. She quivered under his hands and heat stabbed his groin making his cock swell and press against her. When her hand slipped down and circled him, he jerked in her grip and moaned. Her hand was like a hot brand searing his nerves as she stroked up and down the velvety skin of his shaft.

  “Not yet, Bell. Not quickly. I want to treasure you, touch you, and taste your sweet juices. I want to watch you come for me.”

  His hands stroked the robe from her body and he laid her on the bed, his eyes devouring the creamy expanse of her skin. She was flawless. He spread her hair out on the pillow, rubbing a silken curl between his thumb and his forefinger. With a gentle, patient touch, he spread her legs and ran his hands along the outside of her thighs, over the crease at thigh and hip and inside to the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. His dark eyes watched her intently as he stroked along the wet pink lips of her pussy. He pushed and they parted. With a slow, seductive smile he slipped one finger inside of her and worked it lazily in and out. When her breathing accelerated, he added a second finger to the first.

  “Feel me, Bell. Feel me.”

  She twisted and whimpered beneath him. “Please. Cay!”

  He smiled again, removed his fingers, coated with her sweet honey and slowly rubbed some of it on each nipple before he touched his fingers to her mouth. Her lips parted and he slid the fingers in, groaning as she sucked the wetness from them.

  “Taste yourself, darling. Taste how sweet you are.”

  Lowering his head, he laved her nipples with his tongue and then knelt between her spread legs, his eyes meeting hers in the moonlight that streamed into her cabin. With his gaze locked on hers, Cayden ran his palms up her thighs, over the smooth skin of her stomach, the indentation of her waist and up to the firm, pale globes of her breasts. His touch was feather light, leaving her gasping for more. With his eyes still locked on hers, he lowered his mouth until he touched her nipples again with his tongue. When she arched upward, he took her softly into his mouth and suckled her. His fingers traced back down over her belly, sliding intimately between her thighs to caress her clitoris.

  “Yes,” she moaned, her hands twisting in his long hair, her mouth parting in pleasure. But Cayden was nowhere near done. Leaving her nipples, he traced a path with his lips and tongue down to the very core of her. As he thrust a finger deeply inside of her this time, his mouth suckled the swollen bud of flesh nestled in her curls. Whimpers became moans, and then turned to cries of pleasure. His cock throbbed with anticipation, but still he held back, concentrating on pleasuring her. With lips and tongue, fingers thrusting, he brought her again and again to climax until all she could do was shudder wordlessly in his arms. Her cries turned once again to whimpers. He lay next to her, soothing her.

  “Shh, Bell. My beautiful Bell.”

  He felt her tears and stroked them away with his thumbs. “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

  Her arms twined around his neck. “I want to taste you, Cay. I want to touch you like you’ve touched me.”

  He shuddered at her whispered words. Just the idea of her lips wrapping around him was almost more than he could stand. “Bell…”

  “Please, Cay. Help me.”

  He helped her sit, then slid from the bed and stood in front of her. He looked down and simply seeing her beautiful mouth so close to him made his groin tighten even more. She took him in her hands, caressed the length of him and then slowly lowered her mouth, taking the tip of his cock into her mouth. With a husky groan Cayden threaded his fingers through her curls.

  “That’s it, Bell. Yes. Like that. I love it when you suck me.”

  He stroked her head, caressed her shoulders and reveled in the nearly unbearable pleasure of her touch. His hips moved in gentle thrusts, but when he looked down to see her, it was all he could do not to push himself all the way in. But it wasn’t her mouth he wanted to fuck.

  “Lay back, Bell. Lay back and let me bury my cock in you.”

  He eased her back, watching as her sun bleached curls spilled across the dark sheets. His hands caressed along her thighs, lifting her legs and hooking them around his hips. He growled as a sudden shaft of intense lust rocketed through him. With one hand supporting her bottom, he used his other hand to guide his engorged shaft between the moist folds of her cunt. In one powerful thrust he seated himself inside her and then set up a fast pace as he felt his own climax build.

  “Come, Cay,” she whispered. “Come in me.”

  He cried out, holding her hips in place as his body bucked into her, spilling his seed. With his penis still sheathed within her, he turned and took them both down onto the surface of the bed. His hands stroked the bare skin of her back from neck to buttocks. “I love you, Bell. I love you so much.”

  They curled together. When he heard her breath smooth out into sleep, he shifted them both until he could pull the covers up over the two of them. Love so intense it made him shake poured through him. He couldn’t live without her. He knew it, but he had to make the Council believe. More importantly, he had to make her believe it too.

  Chapter 20

  They sailed during the night. Cayden awoke once when the movement of the boat shifted and smoothed out. Bell rested trustingly against him and he realized they had never spent an entire night in each other’s arms. Her fingers were like butterflies against the hair covered skin of his chest, so light he could barely feel them. The covers had slipped off them, and he studied her freely in the dark. His eyes absorbed and memorized every line and curve of her.

  She was everything he ever wanted. From the first moment he saw her when they were but children, she had always been the one. Even as a child he’d loved her far more deeply than just a friend. As a teenager, that love exploded into passion he had barely been able to control, and now as an adult, he wanted her as a lover, a friend and the mother of his ch
ildren. He would sacrifice everything for her if he had to, but they would be together. She was his soul mate, perfect in every way. If only she would realize that.

  He lay awake for a long time, simply watching her sleep, seeing the shadows that lay like bruises beneath her lovely eyes. He stroked her hair away from her pale cheeks, feeling guilty now for having kept her awake so long while they made love. She had been through incredible trauma, and he knew her body had limitations, had seen for himself what happened to her when she was pushed beyond those limitations. And she would be pushed today and tomorrow. The council would expect her to be there for Ciaran’s hearing later this morning and then again for Cayden and Carrick’s appeal tomorrow.

  “Just two more days, love, and then I will make sure that you rest. You have my promise on that.”

  ****

  Annabel insisted on using her crutches. They had left the bay and were now anchored somewhere in the Atlantic, but the roll of the ship made navigating with crutches a challenge. Cayden slowed his steps to match hers.

  “Bell, I can get your chair.”

  “No.” Her chin was tilted at a determined angle. “I will not be wheeled in before your Council.”

  He opened the doors to the conference room. When she looked at the gathering of dark-haired men, she hesitated. Then her eyes lighted on Ciaran. His stare was hostile. Although her face was pale, her chin went up and her dark blue eyes sparkled with determination. If this gathering of the Silkie nobles couldn’t see her worth, then he would gladly give up his pelt for her. She might be running on sheer heart by the end of this, but she would still be there with her chin up.

  ****

  The room was set up with one long table. Riordan sat at the head with Faeran and another man Bell remembered being introduced as Dylan sitting to his right and his left. She quickly realized that the lords of the Atlantic and Pacific were seated on each side. At the opposite end from Riordan was a smaller table at which Ciaran sat between two large, muscular Silkie. Carrick stood when he saw them enter and came to pull out a chair for Annabel to sit. He smiled at her encouragingly as he took her crutches for her and set them against the wall. Briefly, his hand rested on her shoulder. She looked up into his dark eyes; the respect was still there along with something else she couldn’t identify.